Black Rage: What is it?

Rage cannot be
hidden, it can only be dissembled. This dissembling deludes the thoughtless, and
strengthens rage and adds, to rage, contempt.

-- James Baldwin

black rage is not a theory.

i'm not sure that it makes so much sense to explain it in any other terms than malcolm
x's. 'whatever you will do to me, just know that i will do the same to you'. considering
what happens to black americans ever day *not in theory* but in reality, it's a mutha to
face. most white folks who have looked closely at the situations many blacks find
themselves often recoiled in shock. to a person, in my experience, it comes out like 'man
if they did shit like that to me...'. in the end, there is a profound respect for the many
black strategies used to displace or redirect that rage.

coming from that perspective, i respect that many folks are likely to respect the words
and deeds of mlk. but that is rarely the case. there is often a sense of resignation
americans feel in confronting the facts that justice is so often an impossibility - that
oj will be virtually barbecued forever, yet the korean shopkeeper videotaped shooting a
black teenaged girl in cold blood received a suspended sentence and is forgotten by the
nation. white folks and blacks alike come to agree that black rage, given american
society, is inevitable. that is why white people live in white neighborhoods, stay away
from downtown at night, understand the fear of bernard goetz, get the message of willie
horton and respond in all sorts of ways in every aspect of american society in a
predictable fashion to the images of danger associated with black rage.

black rage becomes not only a self-fulfilling prophesy but a necessary component of
american politics. white folks accept their guilt and fear, as they realize their
collective historical incompetence as the political majority in addressing the injustices
faced by blacks. they bow out. they accept the destruction of cities and the perpetuation
of tragedy. black folks do the same thing in their relationships to each other. we abandon
our brothers at the first sign of trouble despite what we know, better than anyone, about
the content of their individual characters, and we use our own successes and absence of
(external) rage, as a justification of our own evasions of responsibility. thus the
enraged black man or woman has become a staple symbol in everyone's rhetoric. but few of
us are serious or busy addressing the fundamental injustice.

rage is not hate.

rage is visceral reaction to a severe victimization when all else seems hopeless. rage
is the explosive last lashing out of a man facing death with his back to the wall. it is
not sustained or calculated like hate. one speaks of acts of rage, not strategies of rage
or ideologies of rage. you rage to get shit out of your system and scare folks into not
pushing you any more. it's a natural thang.

what's unnatural is that there is black rage. that a society is so predisposed to
pushing black folks to the limit that their rage is almost predictable.

although i never do, well - i haven't in memory - i know very well what this rage looks
like and how to use it. the expression of black rage as a dramatic device is (over)used by
black and white artists alike. it's part of the american lexicon. but that is very
distinct from the real thing, as different as individual rap artists are in rhyme
character in a recording studio are from real killers behind bars. the expression is
romanticized in typical american fashion (i can think of no better example than the
western movie, and in particular the role of the writer in clint eastwood's 'unforgiven').

also, black folks front. that's not rage, that's frontin'. and i know one of you stupid
punk ass white boys is going to want me to please explain frontin'. don't even try it. you
know what i'm sayin? just be glad i didn't straight wax your sorry ass from the jump.
cause you wouldn't be standing there with that stupid look on your face gettin all huffy.
you'd be pickin your ass up off the floor. oh oh oh now you know what i'm saying. damn
skippy. if your shit was correct i wouldn't have to go there. lame ass mu'fukas.

(i need to invent a new smiley to cap off that last paragraph. it is the following
expression: i am tilting my head to the side, rolling my eyes up and smacking my teeth and
straight walking away - kind of like what dennis johnson did to chris collingsworth last
night)

i think there is a real recognition, despite the rages we witness, that 'the fire next
time' will be put out next wednesday. yet in that light, i'm not sure that people want to
temper enduring desires for vengeance. if you subscribe to the idea that no matter *what*
black people do in this country, white people will always have all the power, then it is
not temperance so much as an instinct for survival that keeps rage in check. the only
people willing to risk that intemperance that are people who shoot back at cops. that
would include the most violent of gangs, militias and separatists. (same difference).

more moderate and sensible folks angle towards the political symbols of rage *with*
temperance. in other words, i think the aspect of christian charity and forgiveness is
overstated. although there is some revenge in living well, most folks just don't have the
power to attain justice (or payback as the case may be). if you look at the black
community in crown heights, i don't believe the death of gavin cato will every be forgiven
or forgotten. but the fact is, they will never be able to make their enemies pay. that's
why the next 'black vs. jewish' incident in new york city will echo back to
cato/rosenbaum.

again, new incidents of rage will have political echoes into essentially powerless
communities. both sides will evade acting on deeper issues of social justice (with greater
responsibility held by the side with more political power) and the symbolic raging of
spokesmen will run the day.

i do think there is a kind of self-righteous posturing that takes place in defense of
this type of political intransigence. but it goes right back to the symbols of rage which
is just like my fronting in the previous post. to wit: you ought to be glad that we didn't
do what we *felt* like doing - maybe somebody else would be dead.

in the end, the political group who owns the police follow up on that threat. that's
called law and order, but it has nothing to do with justice.

i live in a country with pockets of civilization. today, i am not afraid to go into the
occupied territories, because i grew up in a ghetto. i believe that those in the
territories are willing to hear me out, but i was in no way prepared for the fact that
america was so willing to abandon those places.

i fear that appropriate power to bring infrastructure and hope to those abandoned
places is not forthcoming - that in every way the gap is widening.

articulation of rage is a valuable skill.

so often black folks feel it, but don't know exactly where it is coming from or what to
do about it. they equate that existential anger, confusion and the resulting frustration
as an essential characteristic of being black. but it is not. while it is certainly part
of the black experience, the permanency of which white supremacy replicates generation
after generation, it is not the defining core of who we are.

every generation (and ethnicity) of african americans finds different ways to
articulate and diffuse or redirect this rage.

one answer to black rage is afrocentrism, which has little to do with welfare.
conservatives strike the wrong chord, but one or two notes are right: liberal paternalism
sucks. and part of the 'liberal' agenda is legislation. the problem is that you cannot
legislate peace into raging minds. by the same token you cannot deregulate peace into
raging minds, so conservatives are no closer to the solution. yet the only way (or so it
seems to me) that those people overcome with rage (which is probably a poor way to address
a class of black folks) are going to achieve is under the direction of black folks who
have achieved. yet those of us who have achieved are only marginally powerful.

if i had the 12 billion dollar multinational 'africa inc.' under my direction, i could
fix a half dozen communities lickety-split, extend my influence and make a major
difference. such is our amenability to corporate power.

another response to black rage is the black church.

i am reading derrick bell's latest book 'gospel choirs'. he is about to do an end
around the system, and i am curious to see how it pans out. in his previous book of this
sort, 'faces at the bottom of the well', he argued that racism is a permanent part of
america and that we are all best off recognizing that fact. although the expression of
racism changes (in 1940 blacks were considered inferior because we didn't drive cars as
much as white people - therefore a racialized statistical category of 'automotive ability'
was often used by negro scholars as a benchmark of equality) racism itself does not. bell,
would have us abandon such standards, it appears, as he - a harvard professor of law -
turns to the tradition of black spirituality in search of lessons.

the articulation of black rage or any other black sentiment or thought serves
as a critical discourse on american society.

however, as hall exemplifies in his admittedly undernourished comprehension of
articulate black voices, most of america does not pay attention. there are certainly
*reasons* behind white fear, defensiveness and reactions to perceived threats posed by
blacks. but they are not good reasons, and they must be challenged. 'consistent patterns
of thought' within black communities are either well articulated or they are not. those
which are well articulated have names as do those who represent them. if there are issues
to be discussed and contention about the validity of claims, then there are real ways to
deal with them which are not grounded in fear, defensiveness and reactionary rhetoric. to
direct such discussions are the reasons black thinkers of all types write histories, teach
classes, create novels, compose music, sculpt, rhyme, dance, preach, witness and otherwise
work to expose their thoughts.

yet despite this fact, americans continue to believe in or be unduly influenced by the
racist hype, often believing themselves to be as well-informed as anyone. because of this
there is practically an industry dedicated to knocking ignorant people upside the head. i
take up the cudgel of the race man from time to time, but this time i'll defer to farai:
http://www.popandpolitics.com

certainly ms. chideya is not the first, nor will she be the last to bring clarity to
issues of racial prejudice, oppression and injustice. there are today and have been so
many who have directly transformed rage into productive lessons without pandering
themselves as victims. they don't expect nor ask for pity; these are teachers. and their
lessons stand in defiance of fear. too often we extract soundbites out of these lessons
believing there are golden platitudes that stand for all time in any variety of
circumstances. but how many times have americans consoled themselves with the pathetic
plea of a brain damaged man beaten into submission by brutal police officers? (if there
was ever any question of whether or not rodney g. king was willing to surrender, consider
those words). there is no excuse for americans to pretend to understand the lessons of the
past without any consistent discipline and evaluation. racism invariably leads to
injustice.

like disease, racism needs to be fought with thoroughness and vigor every generation.
yet unlike disease, if you harbor racist ideas wittingly or not, it *is* your fault and
your responsibility. whether or not we live in a democracy, everyone's attitude should
bear scrutiny on the issues.

there are white folks who dance to hiphop in public at centennial olympic village, and
there are white folks who make it their business to read franz fanon.

at some level, most conflict between blacks and whites is political. if you are a
political enemy, then be a good enemy. if you are a political ally, then do it up right.
but if you are unable to bring the potential conflict into political terms, then you are
just like the korean in spike lee's film 'do the right thing' who says *after* real
conflict has begun 'we're all on the same side'. HA. a bit late. (then again everybody
except smiley in that film was light on articulation).

the point is that everyone is capable of perceiving the reality of racial
injustice in america equally well. some people take the task more seriously than
others. one way or another there will be a reckoning. it would be a shame if the color of
your skin speaks louder than your thinking on the matter.

that means sooner or later everybody is going to have to put aside the penny ante bs
and deal with the question of the health of communities. i suspect people who are counting
the color of noses in photographs are way deep in left field without a clue. but that
could just be frontin - an angle to provoke the question what's your bottom line? you have
got to be able to respond to the question, what's the bottom line. are you down with the
struggle or not? you have to be prepared to ask the question too. of course that implies
that you can come correct, which implies further that you are familiar with the political
territory. which means rodney kingisms are out of the question.

but that's hard work.

maybe white people *cannot* "conceive of the level of penetration of racial
injustice into American society" and that is part and parcel of their white identity
and racial self-interest. but the euro-american citizen must divest himself of
that white identity.

thus on that principle the phrase 'it's a black thang you can't understand' is directed
at *white* people and a significant number of americans who are not black needn't concern
themsleves. but the difference between whiteness and a non-racial euro-american identity
is a complicated test. in the end, however white people are all in denial and it is that
naivete which makes them 'innocent victims' of black rage.

sometimes it is black rage that provokes white folks out of their complacency. how many
times have i heard the phrase, 'but nobody in my family ever owned any slaves..'?
unfortunately their introspection ends at the point at which they have convinced
themselves that they are relatively non-guilty of what they percieve as the main thrust of
white supremacy.

in the end however, such excuse making falls flat. that's why white folks need
sophisticated 'answer it all' books like 'the bell curve', or jared taylor's 'paved with
good intentions' or d'souza's 'end of racism'. yet still uncertainty persists and so these
same white folks must face black rage yet again... in fact, they seek it out. hmmm...

black rage must be very comforting for white folks against whom it is not directed.

it's a black political thing that history shows, the majority of americans
refuse to grapple with.

show me the anti-racist plank in the republican party convention coming up.

nobody here can say, "i'm not white, i'm a socialist, and the socialist party of
america refuses that racial definition. one cannot be a socialist and be white because the
socialist party recognizes how anti-democratic race is. we never make racial appeals in
any of our campaigns, we always involve ourselves with racial justice as a priority."

nobody can say that because no political party in
america is so constituted. and the white people who control
the majority parties in the united states of america have dictated that
reason why white folks everywhere have that vague sympathetic personal reaction to the
issues of racial justice. it is because there is no political program.
and as long as white identity has any political power it is because it
lies in the political interests of the major parties to leave it as it stands.

race is a social construct, it is not an essential part one's biology. so when i say
all white people are in denial i am saying it because i believe that euroamericans
choose to be white. if i say america is racist it is because that white identity
is the default for euroamericans. when i say that american politics bear the responsibilty
for the racism in america i say so because these politics do not allow euroamericans to be
anything but white - it doesn't force them to deal with that racial
question. so it pushes the discussion off and re-frames it in terms of class to the
exclusion of race or race to the exclusion of class which ever way suits the comfort zone
of white people.

this is tangential to the subject of black rage, but of course we have to stuff it in
here because this particular forum is one of the only places in america
where a good mix of people discuss the issue day in and day out. but i don't see any party
leaders lurking - do you?

black grass roots political efforts are largely ignored in american
politics because when it comes to black political demands, the focus is placed on
personalities rather than on issues.

so long as african americans remain largely segregated by the legacy of racial
discrimination in housing, grass roots political organizations will always reflect such
efforts at self-determination on a separate and unequal basis. it is the absolute
foreclosure of the possibility of local political clout which has necessitated that blacks
seek political power at the federal level in the first place. the gerrymandering of black
political districts has always been a strategy to get political power because in every
way, black ghettoes have always been neglected by municipalities. and the current
decentralization of political power, coupled with disaggregation of federal minority
districts points more and more back to the old school of political marginalization.

in 40 years, i can tell you that south atlanta is still black and north atlanta is
still white. and i bet you a nickel that wherever you live, the black ghettoes are still
in the exact same places they were before brown vs. board of education. now find me, for
example, a multiscreen theatre complex in any of those neighborhoods. now tell me that
black people don't watch enough movies to justify the investment. HA. what is the
difference, people? what is the difference in the economic infrastructure of black
ghettoes in 1996 and 1956? half the suburbs where utne readers live *didn't even exist* in
1956! so what did anybody do to deserve the economic investment that their community got,
while the black communities got zilch? that's *your* politicians, people.

while politicians in white communities were busy lobbying and getting commercial zoning
for new malls, politicians in black communities were busy trying to insure white cops
didn't shoot black people down in the streets. while politicians for the suburbs were
insuring there were public parks for little league, politicians in the barrio were trying
to get money into the public schools or get children bussed out.

americans bear responisiblity for these politics. only you can tell what kind of
politician you are putting in power. now if you call yourself white, and you elect your
politician without some mandate for racial justice, then yes it's going to come back to
you, sooner or later. becuase when it mattered, you didn't act. and it's not because of
the color of your skin, it's because of the political road you chose.

i don't know how people reconcile 'underclass nihilism' with afrocentrism. it seems to
me that one is largely a myth and the other is a real constructive program that people are
using not only to redirect rage, but to improve the quality of their lives. who is
afrocentric? who is nihilistic?

and since when was mlk gelded? and when did the congressional black caucus lead to
destroyed lives?

consider bob dole's candidacy, there seems no question that he is lacking 'passion'.
but what is passion but redirected rage? since rage is the reaction to injustice, the
passion it generates should serve the cause of justice. so where is dole's passion?
nowhere. now reflect on the conditions of black ghettoes and the leadership position
resolved in post 104. i think one could expect some passion from those quarters. yet there
were no extraordinarily popular 'black leaders' which drafted up that resolution, just
people with the motivation to put in words what common sense dictates should be said and
done about ugly circumstances. so the question: is 104 a 'positive' message. if so, how is
it ignored by the mainstream?

what i'm saying is that resolution and dozens like them i have seen in my experience
with black community politics are very common. that this hype about a lack of 'black
leaders who act like mlk (gelded)' are a fetish of the white political majority. when
faced with the real considered demands of thoughtful elected black leaders, such as those
represented by the congressional black caucus, we witness things like a 'sea change'.

so america has an overabundance of political activists who are intimately familiar
with, and passionately dedicated to the improvement of conditions in black ghettoes. their
accumulated wisdom is dismissed by political hacks like clint bolick who is able to
manipulate white opinion with phrases like 'quota queen'.

black rage is a self-perpetuating phenomenon.

there is a vested interest in american politics to use black rage. white political
majorities are particularly attuned to black rage, whether that is constructive or raw
rage. in short, black rage is a legitimated form of political protest. a lot of blacks
recognize this and make use of it. if i sit here in this forum and complain that black
folks get harrassed unnecesarily by the same police that should be protecting them, that
does not carry the same weight in american society as the artist ice cube writing the rap
'fuck the police' and having 17 year olds pump the beat in the car next to you with an
evil stare on their face. when black representation on the city council of los angeles is
resisted for decades, and there is no forum given for the tyrrany of the darryl gates
administration, that doesn't get the same attention as video of blacks burning police
cars. often enough, there are no acceptable political compromises offered by a polity
which ignores the facts of black life. consider how it is that 'law and order' has become
a 'white man's burden' in our society. such political intransigence is often enough
reasonable provocation for black folks to take rage to the streets. the spirit of
compromise - cant we all just get along - is not proactive. it comes after the violent
fact. clinton has demonstrated this in his dismissal of sista souljah, for example.

the example with r.g. king is perfect. the christopher commission had special
investigative powers that many black community activists had long sought and never
received. the findings of the committee were largely taken with a grain of salt. as it
turns out, mark fuhrman was one of the cops the commission cited as a bad apple. but he
retained his job as did the majority of the officers the commission singled out.

in the effort to get rid of darryl gates, there literally was NO legal recourse left.
no citizens could force him out of office. the mayor had no power, the city council had no
power. gates position was established in the first place by his, and political
conservatives' opportunism in various wars on gangs, illegal immigrants and drug
offenders. all significantly racial issues.

i was in los angeles for the original beating, though by that time it was merely the
latest in a series of outrages i and my colleagues gnashed over. people tend to forget the
dismissed life story of black police officer don jackson who was hustled out of the
hawthorne police department (on permanent leave or some such) after revealing klan-like
activities. he became more widely known as the man involved in several self-styled 'sting'
operations in which he demonstrated police abuse of blacks, his most famous being the
videotape of him being shoved through a plate glass window by long beach police officers.
he had also schooled young black men on their rights regarding probable cause and took a
group of them to westwood where they were predictably harassed by officers there. that too
was videotaped.

eventually his crusade was twisted against him and he became a pariah. he did make a
rather goofy point of trying to get into the members' only los angeles country club - i
believe he handcuffed himself to the gates. but his courageous example was not lost on the
black and latino communities of los angeles county.

as well, outspoken activist micheal zinzun won a civil suit against the police
(defended by johnny cochran) in the amount of 6 milliondollars. he lost the use of one
eye. the hanging death of ron settles in a signal hill jail was never far from anyone's
mind, another cochran victory. 'gang sweeps' which netted about 3% criminal bookings but
added massive amounts of data on black youth into the lapd arrest records system was a big
issue long before the simi verdict. the recent videotaped shooting death of latasha
harlins and subsequent wrist slap given her korean killer reverbrated injustice.

by the time of the r.g. king beating (and subsequent harrassment while he was in the
hospital), most of the major media and especially npr and pacifica radio were all over the
issue and beginning to take sides against gates. but their propensity to put typical
victim spin on everything got under my skin. and you know how pacifica jumps from
conspiracy to conspiracy. at least daniel schorr maintained a level head.

mike woo was losing ground in local politics, pete wilson was attacking gays in the uc
system and clarence was tomming his way to the top court. i was following cops around with
my video camera and looking to get on public access cable. by the time operation desert
sheild went ballistic, just around mlk's birthday in 1991, i had my fill of los angeles.
getting into some very ugly arguments out at ucla at the federal building protests against
the gulf posturing with some screeching asian neocons from orange county had pushed me
over the edge. i was just about ready to start knocking heads.

so i was very fortunate to be living in brooklyn when the verdict of vindication for
briseneo, koon, powell and wind came down. i know i would have been scheming some very
devious raging were i home in los angeles. i had often considered kidnapping a police
officer and removing his trigger finger as the ultimate expression of the rage i felt at
the time. i cannot imagine how i could have resisted the temptation to organize a posse to
carry out such a deed during those days. my distance allowed me to save my life, such as
it is. all of my posts would be prison notes.

much of what i witnessed at that time between 1989 and 1991 in los angeles fuels my
exposition in cyberspace though there was much before it and after it. it made it clear to
me how important it is for public debate to be informed by personal experience which is
driven by the quest for justice. as well it made it clear to me how life and death issues
are manipulated in politicized and half understood versions of fact.